The wonderful wizard of Smeg!
by bloomoonbaby
Summary: Dave Lister, 22 and drunk ends up stealing a Starbug from a JMC ship hold in Liverpool and ends up not at the nearest Denny's but in the psychedelic world of Smeg. Based loosely on that wonderful 1939 film the Wizard of Oz read about Lister's adventure along a yellow brick road. Will the Wizard of Smeg help him fix the stolen Starbug? Written to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Re
1. Chapter 1

Its 3am Sunday morning and Dave Lister drunkenly staggers down a back street in Liverpool with a box looking for a place to take a leak. He cannot find a scrub or a bush to water so he chooses a brick wall in an alleyway. He places the box on a nearby rubbish bin and with one hand propped up against the wall to keep his balance he relieves himself of several pints of lager that had made his way through his gut. Satisfied that he has shaken the last of the liquid out he adjusts himself and uses his hand on the wall to push himself onto the other wall. No man wants to fall over into his own urine. He stumbles out onto the street, and then goes back into the alleyway to retrieve his box. With the box tucked underneath his arm he continues his travels.

His travels began earlier in a little pub about four kilometres away. The plan was to celebrate his mate Dan's birthday with Bob, Jeff, Mike and Flip. They were to have a few drinks together for the birthday boy and then move onto a nightclub to peruse women or get one of the boys so hammered that they could tie him to a park bench with the words "I smeg for loose change" stencilled onto his chest. However, those plans changed as Lister who hadn't eaten that day to have more money for booze got absolutely kerschnickered after his ninth or twelfth beer and got the group kicked out shortly after eleven. Lister was left behind as the others who walked towards the nightclub and since then Lister had been wondering amiably around the city. At some point, he found himself in an electronic shop with £20. He had no idea why such shop was open so late or where the £20 came from but decided while he was there he should buy a toaster. He really wanted some toast.

Now back to the present time, Lister sat himself on a small patch of grass beside a JMC spaceship parking hold in the more industrial area of town. He ripped open the box and with the aid of his lighter found the button to turn on Talkie Toaster, an artificially intelligent food appliance who furnished you with the weather forecast and news headlines as you munched on toast. The toaster lit up alive and began its introductory speech.

"Hi! I'm Talkie Toaster! Thank you for buying me. I sure hope you like…"

"Toast!" demanded Lister with a slur interrupting the Toaster, "Toast!" The toaster lit up in surprise at the tone but being a professional toaster got over that and concentrated on making the demanding, drunk humanoid some toast. But there was a problem, you need bread to make toast and there was no bread for Talkie Toaster to cook. Talkie nervously blinked his lights and said

"Sir, I need bread to make toast. Do you have any bread?" Lister stared at the toaster before suddenly leaping to his feet and flinging the toaster over the fence separating the JMC spaceships from the public. Lister swore, why the smeg doesn't a toaster come with bread to make toast? The picture of the box had toast, eggs and bacon on a plate beside the box. Ok, so he wasn't expecting bacon and eggs as they would probably dissolve the cardboard box but still he wanted that toast goddammit! The tirade in his head dizzied him somewhat and he sat down again. He could hear the toaster whining at him from the other side of the fence. Oh now drunken Lister felt bad. He should probably retrieve the Toaster and say sorry. He stood up and steadied himself. Although drunk Lister still had a knack for breaking into things that he shouldn't be breaking to. Within ten minutes, he had let himself into the parking lot and was wiping a bit of dirt from the toaster, while he did this he grunted in apology to the Toaster who seemed to accept his apology. After some time being held by the drunken man the Toaster piped up nervously,

"Might there be some bread on your ship?" Lister stared at the toaster and mouthed "My ship?" before looking around and realising he was in the middle of a spaceship yard. He has already broken into the yard so what was stopping him from breaking into a ship to steal bread, or even hotwire one to take him to the nearest bakery for a loaf or sourdough or something?

"Yeah!", grinned Lister "We will get some bread from my ship." He tucked the toaster underneath his arm and started scrumping for a ship. Soon he found a small bottle green ship, shaped like a weird bug, the white lettering on the side read "Starbug" but Lister missed the link between the shape of the ship and its name. He crept up the door and after five minutes of playing with the door he had it open and he started his search for bread. There was no bread, but he found a sealed bottle of marijuana gin and an ancient pack of water crackers hidden behind a sink in a bathroom. He made his way around the unfamiliar ship to the cockpit and threw himself into the pilot's seat. He threw the toaster onto the other seat beside him, cracked open the bottle of marujuana and used his water crackers as a chaser for the bitter, sweet mixture of Juniper berries and THC. Soon he began getting cocky. Although the crackers and gin were going down a treat he thought he'd get the ship up in the air and over to the nearest Denny's. He could probably find himself a fiver for some flapjacks or something no problem. After several minutes, or a hour, of jabbing buttons and moving gear sticks around he found himself rising rapidly into the air. He pressed more buttons and it may have been pure luck or his positive and confidence magically causing it to happen, but he turned on autopilot. He leant back in the seat.

"Brutal!" he enthused drinking to his own genius. He leant forward again to look at the coordinates he input into the system. He guessed, quite wrongly, that a coordinate was very similar to those Freephone numbers with the words in them. So if he turned the name of 'Denny's' into a number the ship would take him there. Unfortunately, for him his luck at making the ship work had worn off and the coordinates 33.6697 would not take him to a popular eatery with reasonable prices but to another place entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

Lister had fallen asleep over the console as Talkie the Toaster nervously blinked his lights and made beeping noises on the other pilot seat. This strange man had brought him, demanded toast, voided his warranty by throwing him over a fence, apologised a lot, took him on the ship, which he hotwired and they were now hurtling out of the stratosphere to some unknown location. The man claimed they were going to Denny's but the Toaster knew instinctively, as instinctive as an artificially intelligent Toaster could get, that those coordinates did not lead to a revolting mixture of early morning curly fries dipped in a chocolate sundae. They did not even lead to a much healthier and appeasing breakfast of toast followed by more toast with a short orange juice and finally more toast to get the taste of orange juice out. Where they led? Smeg knows.

The Toaster's musings were soon interrupted by some sudden buffeting. The ship seemed to be going out of control and it was being thrown around as if it were in a tornado. If the Toaster had eyes it would have rolled them. None of the stuff he had experienced so far in the field was related to what he learnt at the Toasting Academy. This was just the icing on the poptart. The man snorted awake and shot back up in his chair.

'Smeg, what aaah!" he gasped quite sober now grabbing at the steering device in front of him. He tried turning the wheel against the direction the ship was turning in. He quickly gave up as he threw himself out of the pilot seat to be violently sick all over the cockpit floor. The spinning stopped suddenly and he struggled to his feet again, and shook his head so vomit in his dreads flicked onto the windscreen of the ship. The Toaster blinked its lights with disgust but said nothing. Lister ignored him and looked out of the window. To him it seemed as if the ship had drifted into an intergalactic tornado and they were currently in the eye of the storm where for some reason that neither Lister nor the narrator knows was dead quiet and calm. Lister peered around at the wild storm around him and nearly leapt back in shock at what he could see. He could make out a humanoid figure. It was flying! He closed his eyes tightly wondering if he was just hallucinating, and then opened them.

The figure was still there, closer and female. Lister gulped, ok so he might still be hallucinating but she was fine. The brunette sat cross-legged across a broomstick of all things. Atop her head she wore a deep purple witch hat, a chunky, sparkly amethyst necklace brought his eyes down to a strapless silky witchy like dress that clung to her form sexily. Finally, she wore a pair of men's steel cap toe boots that appeared to be painted day-glo orange. The result was a tad corny but Lister could not hold it against her. She winked at him and licked her lips. Lister grinned back and shuffled on the spot. Suddenly the expression on her face darkened and out of nowhere she pulled what appeared to be a cane from her person and she smashed in the windscreen of the ship before cackling and flying away. Lister screamed, he was not a man of science, he could not even spell it, but he knew that opening a window in the vacuum of space meant certain death. He only wanted some toast was his final thought as he fainted onto the cockpit floor into his vomit. The toaster kept screaming it knew exactly what happened to a human in the vacuum of space. However, the remainder of the windscreen did not receive a fine coat of Scouser brain as the Toaster believed would happen. Instead, the ship fell quite solidly onto something hard with a loud thump.

Lister soon came around, at first he believed he had died, but soon after pinching himself several times and touching stuff in the cockpit he decided he was alive. He ran to the shower, which he vaguely remembered from his early exploration and frantically showered off the vomit. He knew that they had landed somewhere, but where he did not know, he thought he should at least smell ok for whatever was out there. He changed back into his leathers and rammed his deerstalker onto his head. He grabbed the Toaster who squealed and made his way outside of the ship door.


	3. Chapter 3

What waited outside for him was what he never ever would have expected. It was as if a very popular animation company organised a company picnic festival for their herd of one hundred or so magical flying rainbow unicorns, spiked candy hay with a very potent and alcoholic aphrodisiac, and then recorded the resulting orgy in 3D. Colours ranging from a vibrant purple to a violent red smacked Lister's eyes and he felt dizzied, what kind of place was this? The ship had landed on a field where a very short creature in violet lederhosen was raking the earth. If he looked further out he could see that a bright yellow road made of some sort of brick led out to a large town of pink, white, baby blue and green.

The creature in the Lederhosen looked at him and he stared back. The creature then broke eye contact to take in the ship that Lister arrived in. The creature gasped loudly and then started whistling loudly. Lister moved around to the creature to ask him what was happening but in the corner of his eye, he spotted a patch of bright orange that looked vaguely familiar. His head whipped around and he dropped the Toaster who protested quite loudly at being dropped yet again. Lister ignored him again, panic gripped him, and he killed her. He killed that woman that well tried to kill him. However, he guessed, no one would believe him. He looked out towards the town and froze. In the time that it took him to register that he had killed that brunette on the broomstick two hundred or so of those little creatures. They stared at him. He stared at them. To be honest he almost wet himself. But then they started cheering and the next thing Lister knew three of the little creatures were dragging him down the yellow brick road to the nearest pub.

So the little creatures of this city were Munchkins according to the three that had taken him to the pub titled 'Ye Olde Muncheiken'. They were named Peterson, Chen and Selby. Peterson was from the north of the city and Chen and Selby were from the East end. Not that it mattered, as the Munchkins were a peaceful race. They worked mainly in the crafts such as cuckoo clocks that would be sent all over the planet that Lister had crash-landed on. Outside of work, they liked drinking and getting rowdy in pubs. They informed him of the brunette that had been brutally killed by the spaceship.

"Aaah she was a right old bitch! And evil to boot!" cackled Selby, "Great you killed her!"

"We all would have tried to get in with that Kristine Kochanski though, if only she wasn't the insane wicked witch of the East," Added Petersen "She had great legs."

"Ah come on Petersen!" Chen had smacked his mate around the head, "She never would have gone for you and she was insane." Lister shook his head at the antics of the Munchkins. They were pissed and lucky for him the alcohol they kept supplying was far too small a dose to bring him any higher than nicely drunk. He sighed and excused himself for a cigarette outside leaving the Toaster behind to be used as Petersen's foot rest. He leant against the wall and looked out into the night. He decided he liked this place better at night, the colours of the city toned down and found it was easier for him to see. As for the ship he did not think that he would be able to get it up into the air again. The landing seemed to have shocked the electronics and made them not work. Maybe he could try and fix it or persuade a Munchkin mechanic to help. They hailed him as the town hero after all. He snorted at the ridiculousness of it all.

"And what is so funny Hero?" a light and melodious voice asked. Lister jumped in fright. He noticed a woman about his height standing at the entrance to the Muncheiken in a white ballet type dress complete with dainty little heels. She looked familiar, so he leaned forward to get a closer look. She was so familiar, then he remembered the witch hat and orange day glo boots.

"You!" yelled Lister jumping a clear two feet in the air, "I killed you!" the girl grinned mischievously.

"You are incorrect, you actually killed my sister," the girl nodded and performed a curtsey, "I am Kristine Kochanski, the good witch from the north." She grinned what Lister would come to know as her trademark pinball smile. Lister stared taking in her smile and committed it to he also noted it was quite odd that she didn't seem upset about her sister's death.

"Dave," said Lister feeling really nervous, "Dave Lister that is who I am… Hi." Kristine smiled again and said,

"Let us go inside Dave, we have something to talk about." He nodded and followed her into the pub. He looked over at the table and noticed that the three Munchkins had fallen asleep, the toaster blinked lights at him and he very grudgingly rescued him from Petersen's grip. Lister then placed him at the bar beside Kristine. She smiled again,

"Who is you little friend Dave?" the toaster barged in to introduce himself.

"Hi I'm Talkie the Toaster! Do you have any bread please so I can make some toast?" Kristine laughed a gorgeous pearly laugh and then pulled out a wand studded with quartz. She twirled it around her head and a large loaf of sliced bread popped up beside them. Lister and Kristine placed a piece of bread into each of the Toaster's slot and he very happily got to work making toast. Kristine then ordered a drink for herself and Lister.

"You have some questions for me Dave?" asked Kristine later as they sat in a booth nursing a long island iced tea. Dave nodded, still a bit gobsmacked. He had only been near this girl for half an hour and he had already fallen in love quite hard.

"Soooo Krissie," Lister started "Why do you look exactly like your sister? Why do you have the same name? Why am I here? Have I been drugged?" Kristine smiled again.

"To tell you the truth, my sisters and I used to be one. But one day we separated our physical form." Lister looked confused. "By that I mean we were just one person in one body but then something corrupted us and we changed from one person to four." Lister nodded still confused,

"So there are two more of you?" Kristine nodded in response and said,

"Correct, as for the last two questions, I am not sure why you are here and the only drugging that has been done is self-inflicted." Kristine gazed into his eyes. "But I hope the reason you are here will be a wonderful journey of self-discovery and friendship." She leant over very slowly and kissed him lightly on the cheek. A blush crept up his face onto the cheek where she placed her lips.

"I must take my leave now," she whispered, "But I leave you with some advice. Follow that yellow brick road to the south and seek an audience with Holly. Holly will lead you to your purpose here on this world." She smiled again, "Finally, look at your feet." Lister gazed down and nearly yelled in an unmanly way. The orange day glo boots of the other Kochanski were on his feet. How long had they been there? He looked up to ask Krissie how they got there, but she was gone. Lister gaped a bit, but it was not the weirdest thing that happened ever since he stole the space ship so he grabbed a piece of burnt toast and listened to the Toaster speak to itself in offline mode as he himself drifted off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, the first thing that Lister saw was a very gruff and angry female Munchkin. She seemed to be the land-lady of Ye Olde Muncheiken. Although smaller than an average munchkin, she kicked Lister, Petersen, Chen, Selby and the Toaster out muttering about messy, filthy Munchkins. Petersen and Selby started drifting off to their jobs whatever they were but Chen stayed back with Lister for a little bit longer.

"Dave," said the Munchkin, "Do what Krissie tells you. Holly is wise, and the strongest. He could probably fix up that killing machine of yours." The toaster furiously hissed,

"I am not a killer! I merely make toast!"

"He was not talking about you, you twit," corrected Lister, "But your terrible toast could probably kill an army if we use them as projectiles." The toaster made little angry sounds of frustration but did not bite back. He was going to be the better and bigger toaster.

"I better go now," informed Chen, "Take care Dave, and for the sake that is holy in the world of smeg do not stray off the yellow brick road! There are some dangerous people out there." Chen walked away before Lister could ask who were out there. As much as he felt crook from last night Lister decided to just shrug his shoulders and get on with it. The sooner he talks to this Holly dude the sooner he can get out of this odd Technicolor place and maybe get a date with Krissie.

So he started off down the road, and no he did not skip, he was far too crook for that sort of physical exertion. He had walked a mile or so down the road until he had to stop for a breather. He flopped himself down beside a field of maize or corn.

"Someone still a bit seedy? You should have had some more toast." tittered the toaster.

"Oh shut up" , Lister smacked the toaster.

"Ow!" squeaked the toaster "I could have you up for battery." Lister rolled his eyes and then scanned his surroundings. It was still bright like in the city but they were more mellow, a pallet of yellow, greens, blues and browns coloured the expansive fields of crop. As his eyes drifted across the area he spotted movement. To Lister it looked like a man was dancing erratically. Lister curious and forgetting that he was hungover leapt to his feet and in a quick movement had jumped over the fence. He even began a little jog. The closer Lister got to the figure the odder the sight became. he wore a straw hat which wasn't an odd thing in itself except that it was purple with tiny crystals woven into the brim, it wore overalls well they but not like any overalls he had seen. they were tailored to tightly hug its figure and featured tassels. Underneath the purple reddish overalls featured a sleek black silk shirt with long sleeves the man was tied by his arms to a cross. Finally on the feet which were being kicked high in the air a pair of sleek ankle boots. The oddest thing of all was the figure was hanging from a cross. It was a scarecrow, a dancing scarecrow, a dancing fashionable, as much as Lister gathered, scarecrow. He arrived in front of the scarecrow and looked up to him.

"Hello?" he said more as a question than a statement. The scarecrow looked at Lister, and then grinned. Lister noticed deadly white fangs and instinctively took a step back.

"Hey bud!" It responded in a friendly voice. "Help me down would ya?"

"But you are a scarecrow isn't this your job?"

"No bud it ain't! Some jelly brains just tied me up here!"

"Oh, right!" Lister helped the fanged man down.

As soon as he was down, he ripped off his fashionable hat and overalls to reveal an even more fashionable look, a sunshine yellow double-breasted dinner jacket teamed with straight-legged black trousers.

"Thanks bud!" he beamed adjusting a handkerchief in his breast pocket.

"No problem. Er what are you?" asked Lister puzzled.

"I'm a cat!" he replied looking Lister up and down. He made no attempt to hide the disdain he felt at Lister's choices in style.

"Oh, I'm Lister," said Lister remembering his manners and extending his hand out to the cat, "Dave Lis..."

"I'm not interested." said the Cat to Lister, "Let's go bud!" he then said to his shadow. The odd creature claiming to be a cat yowled and danced with his shadow through the wheat field before leaping over the fence. Lister followed and watched the creature crouched over the toaster he left on the side of the road. Out of nowhere he pulled out a spray bottle and sprayed it.

"Mine!" he called, Lister grinned and called out to him,

"You can have it. Makes awful toast!"

"Hey!", the toaster whined, "The quality of the bread is the difference between good toast and bad toast!" the cat bared his teeth to scare Lister away from his new shiny thing and Lister shook his head. He should start making tracks and get away from the creature and that irritating toaster.

"Well errm Cat I better go, I'm off to go see a wizard. Maybe he can he..."

"Whatever bud." said the Cat batting at the frightened toaster. Lister strode off down the road leaving the two behind... or so he thought. He walked barely 100 yards when he noticed the Cat and the toaster were following him. He turned around, the cat and the toaster he held in his hands.

"What's going on? Are you following me?" Lister crossed his arms and looked interested.

"No bud!" responded the Cat "I'm off to see the wizard. Maybe he can give me some new threads for a daaaaaaaaaaangerous suit! One that would stop people from tying me up in fields."

"Oh you mean you want the Wizard to give you another brain cell." remarked the Toaster. "Then he could bury the one in your head." Everyone ignored the Toaster and then the Cat pushed in front of Lister.

"You are the one following me." He turned back to Lister and thrusted the Toaster into Lister's arms,

"You can have your shiny thing back to. I don't want it." Cat pivoted on the spot and then grooved his way down the yellow brick road screeching and yowling.

They walked for hours in the heat. The cat seemed fine with it, as if his suit was air conditioned, the toaster was fine as it made heat up to 100 degrees Celsius but Lister could not. Unfortunately, he was wearing his best bike leathers. In Liverpool, even without a motorcycle, they were perfect. They kept him reasonably warm and dry when out and about. But here where the average daily temperature was 27 degrees Celsius, Lister was having problems keeping his cool. The leather attracted the heat and the wool inlay just made it damn unbearable. Lister had removed his hat, his jacket and was considering removing the orange day glo boots when he noticed that he could see tress in a distance. The road led into a forest. With joy he decided to run past the Cat, who was in the middle of a dialogue about his adventures with a mouse, towards the forest. Soon the heat of the day was replaced by a pleasant breeze that cooled Lister from his head to his toes, and he laughed loudly with relief. What was even better than that breeze was that he could hear a rushing water up ahead. Soon enough they came to a bridge. Lister quickly dropped the toaster and ignoring the protests of the Cat and the Toaster stripped down to his underwear and slid into the water.

"Unsmegging believable!" Lister sighed. He splashed water over his face and drunk as much as his chipmunk like cheeks could carry. The Cat who had maintained that he was his own man and did his own thing propped up a small beach chair and sewed a ripped seam while Lister was in the water. The thought occurred to Lister that it was almost as if he was waiting for Lister to finish. Like the Cat did not want to be alone. Before he could analyse this idea further he noticed something underneath the bridge. Another figure, Lister did not have much luck with these figures much later and felt rather nervous. Then he remembered a story his grandmother told him about trolls who lived under bridges. Now he was very nervous. In a hushed voice he called out to the Cat.

"Cat" no response from Cat.

"Caaaat?" the cat looked in his direction but then shrugged his shoulders and went back to sewing,

"Caaaaaat" tried Lister one more time, who this time responded with.

"Oh Bud! Didn't hear ya."

"There is something underneath the bridge." Whispered Lister frozen to the spot.

"I know that monkey man, it's been there for years, not moving. Tried to play with it once but it is boring! It just makes boo-hoo noises." The cat rolled his eyes "Talk to me when you have something interesting to say." Lister stared in disbelief at the cat for a bit, but then decided to approach the figure underneath the bridge. If it didn't do anything to the Cat then it must be harmless. He approached slowly. The closer he came he could hear a sobbing sound. Soon enough he was almost on the figure and his fingers stretched out to touch it. It whimpered but didn't move. He leant forward and put his ear close to where he assumed the noise was coming out from. Then he heard it a voice.

"Don't hurt me sir. Help please" Lister jumped back startled he leapt back out of the river to where his clothes were messily strewn about and grabbed for his lighter. He ran back to the figure and shone it at it. It looked like someone turned his head into a twenty-sided die, not like Lister knows they exist or anything, its eyes bulged out of its head and if it could have moved it would probably be running away at full speed. Lister being the kind soul he is using the lighter figured out how to grab it and drag it out from underneath the bridge onto the road. It took some time as it was heavy and the Cat would not help him at all, instead choosing to take a nap in a sleeping bag. Lister was sweating again when he finally got it onto the road. He looked at it and then nodded. It was a mechanoid. He did not know much about the things but he guessed that it probably couldn't move because it was full of liquid. He once had a cellphone that he dropped into a toilet, his girlfriend April threw it in an airing cupboard and if like magic, it worked again. At least until he dropped it into a mutton vindaloo.

So Lister went for another swim and then crawled up onto the road to dry off and see how similar a mechanoid was to a cellphone. Soon enough Lister noticed that the mechanoid could move its fingers, followed by his facial muscles, or whatever mechanoid face muscles are called, then the rest of him started drying out. As the afternoon dragged on Lister and the mechanoid started talking. Lister learnt that the mechanoid's name was Kryten, he came from another planet and he ended up stuck underneath a bridge many years ago because he was washing some laundry for a master but fell into the river. The master left him there and without sunlight his body shut down leaving only his brain and face active. Years he had spent remembering how to fold laundry, replaying episodes of his favourite soap opera 'Androids' and thinking of what the episodes he was missing could be like. During this conversation, the Cat had woken up and brought Talkie Toaster over to investigate. Cat gave Kryten a needle and thread with a demand to embroider a picture of his face onto a handkerchief, which Kryten did happily while they waited for his legs to dry out and recharge. Eventually Kryten could stand and offered to forage for some berries as a thank you.

"Then I'm afraid sirs I must shut myself off."

"What why!?" Lister said gobsmacked "You've just been rescued from underneath that bridge! Why shut yourself off?"

"Well sir, it has been many years since my last master went away. He is surely dead by now, so I have no further purpose."

"That's stupid Kryten! Why don't you stay switched on and hang around with me for a bit. All I have is Talkie the Tithead and this man who thinks he is a cat." The Toaster squeaked offended and the Cat just played with a piece of grass he found somewhere.

"But sir."

"No, but sir me." Lister mocked the mechanoid's odd accent "Instead of turning yourself off why don't you come along with me. I am going to see that wizard bloke see if he can send me back to Liverpool or get some advice on how to impress a girl like Krissie. Maybe you can come along to and find a new purpose or something." Kryten looked at Lister nervously.

"Ok then sir." Lister grinned and smacked the mechanoid on the shoulder.

"Good on ya man! It'll be a laugh." He pointed the direction they were travelling "This way!"

"How does one have a laugh exactly sir" questioned Kryten "It is not in my programming" Lister laughed,

"That is one thing I can teach you, Kryten man."


End file.
